Summaries of Each Chapter.Destanee Stevenson.The chapters are so short! :OChapter One:The novel begins with the voice of the narrator, seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield, who's speaking from a rest home, where he is recovering from a nervous breakdown. Holden lets us know right away that what follows is going to be his story, and on his terms.
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
Holden briefly mentions his older brother, D. B., before launching into the story of the events that led to his hospitalization. His story begins on Thomsen Hill at Pencey Prep, where Holden stands looking down over his school's big football game. Holden has just returned from a fencing meet in New York City, which was a disaster. Holden, the fencing team manager, left all the equipment on the subway and the team never made it to the meet. Furthermore, we find out Holden has been kicked out of Pencey for flunking four subjects. After Holden leaves Pencey for Christmas break, he won't return.
Holden doesn't think much of Pencey, a boys' school full of phonies and crooks, but he's a little bothered about leaving without "feeling some kind of a good-by" (pg. 16). Watching the football game, he finally gets this sensation by remembering a day when he and a couple of Pencey boys were throwing a football. The memory is vivid enough to give Holden some kind of true feeling for the place. As soon as this happens, he's off and running across the road to see his history teacher one last time.Chapter Two:Mr. Spencer, Holden's history teacher, has a case of "the grippe" (a bad cold), and is sitting in his bedroom in a ratty bathrobe, with his bare old man's chest jutting out, smelling of Vicks. This is almost more than Holden can take. Mr. Spencer grills Holden about being kicked out of Pencey and what his future now holds, an exchange that leaves Holden squirming in his seat (which happens to be Spencer's rock-hard bed). Holden has little need for Spencer's lecture, but he doesn't want to hurt his teacher's feelings by being short or ungracious. Still, he amends the clichés Spencer tosses at him, as in this response to Spencer's assessment that life is a game and must be played by the rules:
"Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game." Chapter 2, pg. 8
Still, Holden listens and apologizes as Spencer tries to thrust the gravity of the situation on Holden by calling him "boy" and reading aloud Holden's response to his history exam, a two-paragraph essay on the ancient Egyptians. The response is so bad that Holden even added an apology note at the end of the essay. Holden's troubles are beginning to sound a little more complicated, too--this is the fourth school, he tells Mr. Spencer, that he's been kicked out of, and the world seems to him distressingly full of "phonies." He knows he's beyond Mr. Spencer's help and tells him not to worry. "'I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?'"Chapter 3:Holden's got a matter-of-fact and non-self-deluded way of analyzing himself, and admits that he told a lie to get out of Mr. Spencer's company, and also that this is pretty characteristic, he'll tell a lie rather than suffer through almost any situation.
He heads back to his dorm room at Pencey, and tells a story about Ossenburger, the alumni after whom his dorm is named. This story seems to capture for Holden all of the absurdities of Pencey. Ossenburger, who made his riches in the undertaking business, came back to his old school to make a solemn speech about how God helped him succeed, and this speech was interrupted when one student let out a big fart. Holden gets a kick out of this and sees it as poetic justice. Ossenburger is a phony, and nothing in his speech was worth hearing, anyway.
Back in his room in Ossenburger Hall, Holden takes out a novel and begins reading. Holden is surprisingly earnest about reading for a student who's being kicked out of school, and says, "I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot." Chapter 3, pg. 18
The dorm is nearly empty, as everyone is at the big football game. Holden's enjoying his solitude, and also seems rather tickled by his new red hunting hat, which he bought earlier that day in New York. This pleasant solitude is wrecked, however, when Holden's next door neighbor, the gangly and pimply Ackley, enters the room uninvited. Holden tries to be fair in his initial description of Ackley. But the more he chronicles Ackley's behavior--how he interrupts Holden's reading by walking around the room, picks up things and puts them back in the wrong place and laughs at Holden's expense--the more of a slob and a jerk Ackley seems. Ackley hates most everyone according to Holden, but Holden accepts him to some degree and does a few small things for him, such unpacking his scissors so Ackley can cut his nails. Ackley truly dislikes Holden's roommate, Stradlater, though. When Stradlater hurries into the room to prepare for a date, Ackley quickly exits, despite the fact Stradlater gives him a civil 'hello.'Chapter Four:
Holden gets around to asking Stradlater who his date is for the evening, and is shocked to find out he knows the girl, Jane Gallagher. Holden cares a great deal for Jane, and they used to have a close friendship, playing checkers all the time two summers ago, when their families were summer neighbors. Holden tries to tell Stradlater some stories about Jane, most importantly that she "keeps her kings in the back row" when playing checkers, but Stradlater is only interested in hearing the "sexy" things about Jane. Holden becomes increasingly nervous and agitated thinking about the sexually-experienced Stradlater going out with his old friend Jane.
Chapter Five:
After returning to the dorms after seeing a movie with Mal, and kicking Ackley out of his room, Holden starts writing the descriptive essay for Stradlater. Holden can't think of anything worth describing, except for his brother Allie's left-handed baseball mitt. Allie had written poems all over his fielder's mitt in green ink, so as to have something to read when he was bored in the outfield. Holden tells us that Allie died of leukemia, about four years ago, and that he was a great kid. Holden obviously misses him. The night Allie died, Holden slept in the garage and punched out all the windows. Holden finishes up Stradlater's essay about the baseball mitt at 10:30 and stares out the window, looking at the snowy world and listening to Ackley snore from the next room over.
Chapter Six:When Stradlater finally returns to the dorm, Holden can hardly restrain his nervous anticipation about Stradlater's date with Jane. Holden narrates this section with a lot of subdued anger and says he can't remember a lot of the details. Stradlater doesn't offer any information about the date, and Holden tries to conceal his concern. When Stradlater sees the essay Holden has written, he complains about the subject (Allie's baseball mitt), so Holden rips up the essay. Both boys are upset and edgy and don't talk for a while after this. Holden smokes a cigarette to relax and annoy Stradlater, who can't stand it when Holden breaks the rules. Holden finally asks about the date, and isn't happy to hear that Stradlater and Jane "just sat in the goddam car" all night. Holden asks directly if he "gave her the time" and Stradlater dances around the question. This is more than Holden can take, and he tries to give Stradlater a good sock in the face. In the end, it's Holden who takes the harder punch. He calls Stradlater a moron so many times that Stradlater looses it. Stradlater is nervous after this - he didn't really want to hit Holden. Holden's nose is bleeding profusely, and he waits for Stradlater to go to the bathroom before getting up. He digs under his bed to find his hunting hat and puts it on. Holden then looks at himself in the mirror.Chapter Seven:After the fight, Holden tries to find some consolation with Ackley, who, after he gets over the shock of Holden's bloody face, is mainly just irritated that Holden woke him up. Holden asks if he can spend the night in Ackley's roommate's bed, but Ackley refuses. Holden lies in the bed and can't stop thinking about Stradlater and how he puts the moves on girls, snowing them in with false sincerity. He's still worried about what Stradlater did with Jane. Holden keeps saying that everything felt "lonesome and rotten," and out in the corridor, tying to decide whose room to go to next, Holden decides what he really wants to do is leave Pencey Prep immediately. Since he's going to go home Wednesday anyway, Holden decides he can leave now, go into New York City and take it easy in a cheap hotel for a few days. As he packs up his things, his deliberation is broken for a moment only by the sight of a pair of ice skates his mother sent him a few days ago. Holden thinks about his mother going into the store and asking the salesman a million questions (she ended up buying the wrong kind, anyway) but seeing the ice skates makes Holden feel sad about failing out of Pencey and letting his parents down again.Chapter Eight:Holden walks to the train station and boards a late train for New York. He takes off his red hunting hat and, still depressed, stares out the window until Trenton, when a woman boards the near-empty train and plops herself down in the seat next to his. The woman comments on the Pencey Prep sticker on one of Holden's suitcases, and it comes out that she's the mother of Ernest Morrow, a classmate of Holden's. Ernest is, according to Holden, "the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey...." But Mrs. Morrow seems nice enough, not to mention she's a nice looking woman, and Holden can't resist talking to her. Holden tells Mrs. Morrow his name is Rudolf Schmidt, the name of the Pencey janitor. This is the first of a rather fantastic string of lies he tells Mrs. Morrow. Ernest is shy and extremely popular, Holden tells her. Holden offers Mrs. Morrow a cigarette and they both smoke, against train rules. Holden even asks her if she'd like to have a cocktail in the club car, which is going a little too far. He tells a few more lies along the lines of how he's going home early to have a brain tumor removed, and has to assert a pretty strong force of will to stop lying. Chapter Nine:After Holden gets off the train, he catches a cab downtown instead. The cabbie is not one for conversation, and he's put-off by Holden's absentmindedness and his strange questions. His obsession with the ducks in Central Park, which he first mentioned when he was back at old Mr. Spencer's house, comes up again. The cabbie drops Holden off at the Edmont Hotel. All bound up now, Holden sits down, smokes a few cigarettes, and decides to call Faith Cavendish, a woman a guy from Princeton said "didn't mind doing it once in a while...." (pg. 63) She's angry to be bugged by a stranger in the middle of the night, but warms up after a bit. She won't, however, agree to have drinks with him that night and Holden, who needs some instant satisfaction more than anything else, turns down her offer to meet for drinks the next day. Holden instantly regrets turning her down. Chapter Ten: Holden finds some girls in the hotel's Lavender Room. Bernice, Marty and Laverne are three pretty dull women, all about thirty years old. They're visiting from Seattle, hoping against the odds to see some famous New Yorker walk into the dumpy little hotel bar. Holden, in the mood to dance, finally gets Bernice, the blonde and the best looking of the three, out on the dance floor. Bernice does a good job cutting the rug, despite the terrible band. Eventually all three women dance with Holden, and he spends the rest of the evening at their table, sucking down cokes (because the waiter refuses to serve him a drink) and trying to get the women to talk. They know he's young, and make little show about even being civil to him. In the end, he buys them a bunch of drinks and gets left in the bar, without girls and without drinks, the two things anyone needs, Holden says, to survive a night in a crappy hotel bar.Chapter Eleven:On his way back through the hotel lobby, Holden gets Jane Gallagher on his mind again. They met, Holden says, when they lived next door in Maine one summer, and the two of them used to play golf and checkers together. While he won't describe her as conventionally beautiful, Holden is obviously smitten. He seems particularly fixated on her mouth, and he seems to have a general fondness for Jane's mind and sensibilities. They haven't, Holden is quick to mention, even necked, though they did come close one time, when Jane broke down over her booze-hound step-father, Mr. Cudahy, and Holden was driven to console her with kisses, though none on those famous lips. Holden is nearly overwhelmed with depression. He decides to head out to a piano club his brother D.B. used to frequent, though even the possibly authentic pleasure of a piano bar leaves a bad taste in Holden's mouth. He says of Ernie, the player there.Chapter Twelve: When Holden arrives at Ernie's, he finds it full of "prep school jerks and college jerks" and Ernie's piano playing, flashy and melodramatic, leaves the jerks swooning with admiration and Holden choking with his usual contempt and despair. He gets stuck at the worst table in the joint, a situation somewhat eased by the fact that he can at least get served a stiff drink here. Holden gives his running commentary on the boring, dreadful conversations happening all around him, and is smoking and drinking up a rather lonely storm until one of his brother D.B.'s old flings, Lillian Simmons, recognizes him and strikes up a conversation. The conversation isn't particularly satisfying, and Holden declines an invitation to join Lillian and her Navy guy date. He says he has to leave, and goes.Chapter Thirteen: It's quite late at this point, and Holden steers away from the bars and is almost safely back in his room when the elevator man asks him if he's interested "in a little tail t'night?" (pg. 91) It's been a bad and lonely night, so Holden says yes, an answer he soon regrets. It's at this point that he blurts out what's pretty clear from his behavior: "If you want to know the truth, I'm a virgin. I really am. I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never got around to it yet." Holden resorts to his favorite coping mechanism - lying - and tells Sunny he's just had a major operation on his clavichord. Sunny puts on her best sell, climbing on Holden's lap and whispering in his ear, but this only makes him more nervous. In the end, he pays her for services-not-rendered.Chapter Fourteen: Holden tries to find a little consolation by talking to Allie, his dead brother. This turns into an attempt at prayer, though Holden is "sort of an atheist" (pg. 99), and can't really muster the proper enthusiasm. At any rate, all this comes to a sharp end with a knock at the door. Holden, who's nervous and in his pajamas, opens the door to find Sunny and Maurice, the elevator man/pimp. They've come for their five bucks, which Holden, on principle, really does not want to fork over. Old Maurice keeps calling Holden "chief," and finally gets up in Holden's face, first giving him a sharp flick of his finger on the vulnerable part of his pajama pants, and then a solid slug in the stomach. They take the five dollars from Holden's wallet and leave him writhing on the floor. It feels rotten, but Holden can't resist the opportunity to pretend he's a wounded character in the movies, struggling to cover his gaping bullet wound and avenge this own wound with the help of an automatic weapon.Chapter Fifteen:Holden wakes up hungry and lonely, and decides to give Sally Hayes a call. Sally's no Jane, and he's immediately annoyed when she uses the phony word "grand," and begins telling him about all the boys who are desperately hoping to take her on a date. But Sally's a girl and she's good-looking, so Holden sets up a date. They'll meet downtown that afternoon and catch a show.Holden's got some time to kill, so he stows his bags in a locker at the train station and heads off for some breakfast. Holden says he's skinny because he's not fond of eating much besides an occasional Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. Today, however, he orders a big greasy breakfast at a sandwich bar. While he's eating, two nuns come in and approach the counter. When they set down their cheap suitcases, Holden is off into a new fit of worries. He says even something as minor as the sight of cheap suitcases can make him dislike a person, and he tells the story of one of his old roommates who fell into this category. Despite their suitcases, Holden likes these nuns. They're schoolteachers, and Holden spends some time talking with one who teaches English about literature, especially Romeo and Juliet. Holden's analysis of the play is consistent with his habit of siding with the little guy and despising the expected reaction. His favorite character, he says, is Mercutio, and he pretty much hates Romeo.Before the nuns leave, Holden gives them ten dollars in the name of charity. He's glad to have escaped without being hit with a bunch of preaching and sermonizing.Chapter sixteen:With two hours to kill until his date with Sally, Holden takes off in search of a record he wants to buy for his little sister Phoebe. It's not a great day for walking - it's still pretty cold - though Holden sees one thing he thinks is worth relating. It's a mother and father and a little kid, walking down the street. They look a little poor, though happy, and the boy is walking a little to the side of them, out on the edge of the street, and he's singing. The song is simple, just the same phrase repeated: "'If a body catch a body coming through the rye.'" Chapter 16, pg. 115 This is the first direct mention of the catcher in the rye. Something about the scene and the song lift Holden's spirits for a bit.Holden gets tickets for a play, though he can't resist a little rail on actors, who are among the biggest phonies around. He also finds a copy of the record he wants for Phoebe, called "Little Shirley Beans". With the record in hand, he heads to Central Park, hoping to find Phoebe roller skating so he can give her the present. In the park, Phoebe's nowhere to be found, although Holden does strike up a conversation with another little girl, who suggests he look at the museum with the Indians in it. Holden sets off in the direction of the Museum of Natural History, thinking the whole time about the field trips he took there as a kid, times when everything was sweet and innocent, and the museum never seemed to change. Holden is really moved thinking about all this, and says,"Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway." Chapter 16, pg. 122
By the time he gets to the museum, he's gone from fond nostalgia to despair over change that's so strong he can't even make himself go inside. Chapter Seventeen:Holden's still a little early for his date, so he heads into their meeting spot and girl-watches until his date arrives. Sally looks good, and Holden, spontaneous as ever, feels like marrying her right then and there. The two take a cab to the theater, making out a bit on the way, and Holden even tells Sally he loves her. She says the same, though also advises him, in the same breath, to get a more stylish haircut.The play more or less gets on Holden's nerves, though he seems interested in articulating why the actors don't please him. They're like Ernie, the piano player in the Village, he says--so good that they've started showing off instead of doing their job in a genuine and heartfelt way. What makes the whole experience worse is the appearance of some phony friend of Sally's who captures her attention during both intermissions. The two of them name-drop and ignore Holden's presence. By the time they get in the cab after the show, Holden has grown to "sort of hate old Sally...." (pg. 128)
There seems to be a chance that the evening will be salvaged, for Sally asks Holden if he wants to continue the date with a little ice skating at Rockefeller Center. Sally's up for this mainly so that she can wear her short little ice-skating skirt. She looks stylish at least while she's falling down all over the place. She and Holden spend most of the time on their rear ends, and they finally cut the torture and go inside for a drink.
Their conversation is in the typical superficial rut at first, though Holden, presumably exasperated with all this phoniness, finally bursts out and asks Sally if she ever gets fed up, whether she hates school. Sally is a clear fence-rider, a complainer but one who's not up for breaking any rules. As Holden, excited to finally vent some of his exasperation, gets crazier, louder and more critical, she gets more and more uncomfortable. Holden gives his clearest condemnation of boys' school.
''It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques.'" Chapter 17, pg. 131 Holden goes on, to Sally's horror, and gets so worked up that he invites her to flee with him to Massachusetts or Vermont. This is the last thing in the world that the budding socialite Sally is interested in, though she tries to let Holden, who seems to be acting a bit the madman, down softly. Holden is confrontational enough, however, that she loses her manners, too. Finally, they're about to leave and Holden tells Sally that she's a royal pain in the ass. This seals his fate, and he's soon out on the street, having left his date to find her own way home. Chapter Eighteen:As he walks, he thinks about war, as he's just seen a war movie. Holden says his brother D.B. fought in the war, and that D.B. didn't think much of it at all. Holden shares D.B.'s opinion, he's got what he'd call "yellowness" in this respect, too. If there's ever another war, Holden says, "they better just take me out and stick me in front of a firing squad." Chapter Nineteen:The Wicker Bar is a pompous place that normally features two French girls singing dirty songs, though the girls don't seem to be there when Holden arrives to meet Carl Luce. Carl, who is a bit older and certainly considers himself in another planet than Holden as far as wisdom goes, comes across as a pretty stiff and snobby guy. He drinks extra-dry martinis and dismisses most of Holden's attempts at conversation, which are admittedly a bit juvenile. Holden is particularly agitated about sex in this scene, and has his first bout of homophobia, calling gay men "flits." Carl Luce apparently knows some things about girls and sex. He says, for instance, he's currently dating a foreign sculptress in her late thirties. Holden keeps trying to get some details out of him. Carl Luce refuses to answer these "typical Caulfield questions...." (pg. 146) When Holden tries to be honest and explain how the problem with his sex life is that he can't get turned on by a girl unless he really likes her, Carl advises he go to a psychoanalyst. Luce's father is a psychoanalyst, and apparently Carl has made this suggestion before.Not surprisingly, Luce leaves when he feels he's stayed his obligatory time, even though Holden practically begs him to stay. Chapter Twenty:With Luce gone, Holden turns to his drinks and before long is quite drunk. Valencia, the singer who's replaced the French girls, belts out a few tunes, and Holden first gets dramatic, doing his bullet-in-the-guts routine, then a little maudlin, wanting to get a girl on the phone. He staggers out of the bar and calls Sally, who is surprisingly nice and patient with Holden, who last left her to find her own way home from the ice skating rink. Holden is rambling and slurring, though, and Sally ultimately hangs up on him. Holden's next stop is the bathroom, where he tries to get his wits back by dunking his head in a sinkful of ice cold water. The piano player from the bar comes in, combs his hair and shakes off Holden's kiss-up compliments. The piano player advises Holden to go home, but Holden doesn't really have anywhere to go. He leaves the bar and heads in the direction of Central Park, to investigate the lagoon for traces of the ducks. The ice water obviously hasn't sobered Holden up fully. He has a terrifically hard time finding the lagoon, even though he's lived in New York all his life and knows the park like the back of his hand. He drops Phoebe's record on the way, breaking it into a bunch of tiny pieces. The pond is partly frozen, and although Holden does a thorough investigation, nearly falling into the water a few times, there are no ducks to be found.Sitting on a park bench, his wet hair frozen solid, Holden's thoughts turn to death. He hates the idea of his body spending eternity in a cemetery, and he's bothered to think that that's what's happened to his brother Allie. Ultimately, it's the thought of how sad Phoebe would be if he died that gets Holden up and off the park bench. He's decided that he'll go home, sneak in, and pay "old Phoebe" a visit. Chapter Twenty-One: Holden's got the good luck to find a substitute elevator boy on duty, and he makes it up to his parents' apartment without attracting too much attention. Phoebe is asleep in D.B.'s room, where she likes to stay when he's away, and Holden sneaks quietly into the room, sitting down at a big desk and leafing through some of Phoebe's notebooks, which he gets a big kick out of. When Holden finally wakes Phoebe up, she's obviously thrilled to see him. She chatters about the Christmas play she's going to be in, about the movie she saw that afternoon, about a boy in school she's having a kid-drama with, and she reassures Holden by telling him that their parents are out a party and won't be back until very late. Phoebe's a smart one, though, and pretty soon she gets around to asking why Holden's home on Saturday when he's supposed to arrive on Wednesday. Despite Holden's rationalizations, Phoebe's onto him, and is soon moaning with a very parental-sounding despair that he's obviously gotten kicked out of school again, and that "'Daddy'll kill you.'" (pg. 165) Holden tries to reassure her, but Phoebe will have none of that--she pulls a pillow over her head and refuses to come out. Chapter Twenty-Two:Holden returns from a quick trip to the living room, to steal some cigarettes, and finds that Phoebe still won't look at him. When Phoebe finally asks him why he got kicked out of Pencey, or more clearly, why he "did it," Holden spits out his problem with Pencey: that almost without exception, it's full of phonies and mean guys. Phoebe is not particularly sympathetic, and seems to think that Holden's problem is bigger than one of adjustment at Pencey Prep. She demands that he name one thing he likes, just one thing, then stares at him, waiting for an answer. While she waits, Holden can't keep his mind on the question at hand, and he starts thinking about James Castle, a boy who got bullied around at one of Holden's old schools and ultimately jumped out of a window to his death. Phoebe interrupts his thoughts, now telling Holden, "'You can't even think of one thing.'" (pg. 171) Holden finally answers that he likes Allie and that he likes what he's doing at the moment, sitting and chatting with Phoebe. Neither answer satisfies Holden's sister, and she demands next to know what Holden's going to do with his life. This question only leads Holden to another depressing rant about how most anything you do in the adult world ends up making a phony out of you.Finally, sitting on the bed, Holden comes up with one job he'd like to have. He tells Phoebe of a vision he's had. "'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.'" Chapter 22, pg. 173 Phoebe can only sit silent after this, until she finally asserts one last time, "'Daddy's going to kill you.'" (pg. 173) Chapter Twenty-Three: Holden makes a call to a favorite ex-teacher of his, Mr. Antolini, who, after hearing that Holden's been kicked out of Pencey, invites him over to his apartment. It's very late, and Holden's getting nervous again that his parents will come home. When he returns to Phoebe, she's got the radio on and is in a better mood. She asks Holden to dance.
The two dance a few numbers, and Holden explains that Phoebe's an excellent dancer, especially for a kid. The two are sitting around, joking with each other, when Phoebe shoots to attention--she's heard the front door open. Holden hides in the closet and Phoebe flicks the light off, but their mother can tell she's been awake. Phoebe lies honorably on Holden's behalf, even going so far as to take the blame for Holden's cigarette smoke, saying she took a fugitive puff herself.
After their mother leaves, Holden is ready to make his own exit. Phoebe gives him all of her Christmas money, and all of the sudden, Holden is overwhelmed and starts to cry. He gets himself together, though, gives Phoebe a hug and his favorite red hunting hat, and heads out again into the cold night.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Holden likes Mr. Antolini for his wit and his kindness. He was the only person, Holden says, who would go near James Castle's body after he jumped to his death. Mr. Antolini now lives in a swanky apartment with his wife, who's rich and a good bit older than he. The Antolini's threw a party earlier in the evening and Mr. Antolini has quite a few drinks in him. He's a little wired, though, and eager to talk with Holden. Holden is exhausted and hungover at this point, though he's grateful that Mr. Antolini's taken him in. Therefore, as with Mr. Spencer, Holden gives his best effort at listening to what amounts to a pretty scary lecture from his old teacher. Mr. Antolini is worried that Holden is headed for a fall, "'a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.'" (pg. 187) He fears that Holden is going to end up alienated and hating everyone by the time he's thirty. He gives Holden a bunch of advice, most of it to the effect that he needs to stick with school and come to realize that he's "'not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.'" (pg. 189) Holden listens, though when a yawn escapes him, Mr. Antolini laughs and helps him make up the couch. Holden seems like he might finally get the good bit of sleep he needs, but something happens, he says, that he almost doesn't even want to talk about. He wakes in the middle of the night to find Mr. Antolini sitting beside the bed, petting him on the head. Holden has a very fierce reaction to this; he jumps up, asks Mr. Antolini what the hell he's doing, then grabs his clothes to make his exit. He tries to be a bit civil about it, saying he's just going to get his suitcase from the station, but when he walks out the door it's obvious he's not coming back. Chapter Twenty-Five:At this point, Holden's at rock bottom. He goes to Grand Central and sleeps on a bench, more depressed than he's ever been. When he wakes up, he thinks maybe he jumped to conclusions about Mr. Antolini's behavior, though he's suspicious because he always seems to be the recipient of "perverty behavior."It's only a few days before Christmas, and Holden walks through the city, filled with memories and sadness. He says,
"I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again." Chapter 25, pg. 197
This spooks Holden out, and he starts thinking about his dead brother Allie again, asking Allie not to let him disappear. It's now that Holden decides he's not going back home or back to any school, he'll go out West, get a job pumping gas, and live in a cabin. He also says, "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life." Chapter 25, pg. 198 Before he leaves, Holden wants to see Phoebe one last time, so he heads to her school with a note asking her to meet him at the art museum at lunchtime. While he's at the school, delivering the note, he sees 'Fuck you' written in two places, and this infuriates him. At the museum, where Holden leads a couple of little kids playing hooky in the direction of the mummy display, he sees the profanity written for the third time. This seems to say a lot about the world to Holden."That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose." Chapter 25, pg. 204 Phoebe shows at the appointed meeting place, dragging a big suitcase. She tells Holden she wants to come with him, news that makes Holden oddly furious. He tells Phoebe that she's supposed to be in the Christmas play, and that there's no way she's coming along. Phoebe gets mad and tosses Holden's red hunting hat at him. In what seems like an attempt to assuage her, Holden tells her that he's not going West, he's changed his mind and will go home if she goes back to school. Holden suggests she skip school that afternoon and hang out with him, though Phoebe's so mad that she won't walk on the same side of the street with her brother. At the zoo, in front of the carrousel, she finally softens up a bit. It's one of those carrousels with a gold ring that kids make a grab for, and Phoebe rides it while Holden sits watching, even after it starts pouring rain. He finally feels better. In fact, watching Phoebe, he's "damn happy" (pg. 213) and he seems to have come to a new conclusion about innocence and childhood. "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them." Chapter Twenty-Six:At this point, Holden's at rock bottom. He goes to Grand Central and sleeps on a bench, more depressed than he's ever been. When he wakes up, he thinks maybe he jumped to conclusions about Mr. Antolini's behavior, though he's suspicious because he always seems to be the recipient of "perverty behavior."It's only a few days before Christmas, and Holden walks through the city, filled with memories and sadness. He says, "I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again." Chapter 25, pg. 197This spooks Holden out, and he starts thinking about his dead brother Allie again, asking Allie not to let him disappear. It's now that Holden decides he's not going back home or back to any school, he'll go out West, get a job pumping gas, and live in a cabin. He also says, "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life." Chapter 25, pg. 198
Before he leaves, Holden wants to see Phoebe one last time, so he heads to her school with a note asking her to meet him at the art museum at lunchtime. While he's at the school, delivering the note, he sees 'Fuck you' written in two places, and this infuriates him. At the museum, where Holden leads a couple of little kids playing hooky in the direction of the mummy display, he sees the profanity written for the third time. This seems to say a lot about the world to Holden.
"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose." Chapter 25, pg. 204
Phoebe shows at the appointed meeting place, dragging a big suitcase. She tells Holden she wants to come with him, news that makes Holden oddly furious. He tells Phoebe that she's supposed to be in the Christmas play, and that there's no way she's coming along. Phoebe gets mad and tosses Holden's red hunting hat at him. In what seems like an attempt to assuage her, Holden tells her that he's not going West, he's changed his mind and will go home if she goes back to school. Holden suggests she skip school that afternoon and hang out with him, though Phoebe's so mad that she won't walk on the same side of the street with her brother. At the zoo, in front of the carrousel, she finally softens up a bit. It's one of those carrousels with a gold ring that kids make a grab for, and Phoebe rides it while Holden sits watching, even after it starts pouring rain. He finally feels better. In fact, watching Phoebe, he's "damn happy" (pg. 213) and he seems to have come to a new conclusion about innocence and childhood. "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them."
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
Holden briefly mentions his older brother, D. B., before launching into the story of the events that led to his hospitalization. His story begins on Thomsen Hill at Pencey Prep, where Holden stands looking down over his school's big football game. Holden has just returned from a fencing meet in New York City, which was a disaster. Holden, the fencing team manager, left all the equipment on the subway and the team never made it to the meet. Furthermore, we find out Holden has been kicked out of Pencey for flunking four subjects. After Holden leaves Pencey for Christmas break, he won't return.
Holden doesn't think much of Pencey, a boys' school full of phonies and crooks, but he's a little bothered about leaving without "feeling some kind of a good-by" (pg. 16). Watching the football game, he finally gets this sensation by remembering a day when he and a couple of Pencey boys were throwing a football. The memory is vivid enough to give Holden some kind of true feeling for the place. As soon as this happens, he's off and running across the road to see his history teacher one last time. Chapter Two:Mr. Spencer, Holden's history teacher, has a case of "the grippe" (a bad cold), and is sitting in his bedroom in a ratty bathrobe, with his bare old man's chest jutting out, smelling of Vicks. This is almost more than Holden can take. Mr. Spencer grills Holden about being kicked out of Pencey and what his future now holds, an exchange that leaves Holden squirming in his seat (which happens to be Spencer's rock-hard bed). Holden has little need for Spencer's lecture, but he doesn't want to hurt his teacher's feelings by being short or ungracious. Still, he amends the clichés Spencer tosses at him, as in this response to Spencer's assessment that life is a game and must be played by the rules:
"Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game." Chapter 2, pg. 8
Still, Holden listens and apologizes as Spencer tries to thrust the gravity of the situation on Holden by calling him "boy" and reading aloud Holden's response to his history exam, a two-paragraph essay on the ancient Egyptians. The response is so bad that Holden even added an apology note at the end of the essay. Holden's troubles are beginning to sound a little more complicated, too--this is the fourth school, he tells Mr. Spencer, that he's been kicked out of, and the world seems to him distressingly full of "phonies." He knows he's beyond Mr. Spencer's help and tells him not to worry. "'I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?'" Chapter 3:Holden's got a matter-of-fact and non-self-deluded way of analyzing himself, and admits that he told a lie to get out of Mr. Spencer's company, and also that this is pretty characteristic, he'll tell a lie rather than suffer through almost any situation.
He heads back to his dorm room at Pencey, and tells a story about Ossenburger, the alumni after whom his dorm is named. This story seems to capture for Holden all of the absurdities of Pencey. Ossenburger, who made his riches in the undertaking business, came back to his old school to make a solemn speech about how God helped him succeed, and this speech was interrupted when one student let out a big fart. Holden gets a kick out of this and sees it as poetic justice. Ossenburger is a phony, and nothing in his speech was worth hearing, anyway.
Back in his room in Ossenburger Hall, Holden takes out a novel and begins reading. Holden is surprisingly earnest about reading for a student who's being kicked out of school, and says, "I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot." Chapter 3, pg. 18
The dorm is nearly empty, as everyone is at the big football game. Holden's enjoying his solitude, and also seems rather tickled by his new red hunting hat, which he bought earlier that day in New York. This pleasant solitude is wrecked, however, when Holden's next door neighbor, the gangly and pimply Ackley, enters the room uninvited. Holden tries to be fair in his initial description of Ackley. But the more he chronicles Ackley's behavior--how he interrupts Holden's reading by walking around the room, picks up things and puts them back in the wrong place and laughs at Holden's expense--the more of a slob and a jerk Ackley seems. Ackley hates most everyone according to Holden, but Holden accepts him to some degree and does a few small things for him, such unpacking his scissors so Ackley can cut his nails. Ackley truly dislikes Holden's roommate, Stradlater, though. When Stradlater hurries into the room to prepare for a date, Ackley quickly exits, despite the fact Stradlater gives him a civil 'hello.' Chapter Four:
Holden gets around to asking Stradlater who his date is for the evening, and is shocked to find out he knows the girl, Jane Gallagher. Holden cares a great deal for Jane, and they used to have a close friendship, playing checkers all the time two summers ago, when their families were summer neighbors. Holden tries to tell Stradlater some stories about Jane, most importantly that she "keeps her kings in the back row" when playing checkers, but Stradlater is only interested in hearing the "sexy" things about Jane. Holden becomes increasingly nervous and agitated thinking about the sexually-experienced Stradlater going out with his old friend Jane.
Chapter Five:
After returning to the dorms after seeing a movie with Mal, and kicking Ackley out of his room, Holden starts writing the descriptive essay for Stradlater. Holden can't think of anything worth describing, except for his brother Allie's left-handed baseball mitt. Allie had written poems all over his fielder's mitt in green ink, so as to have something to read when he was bored in the outfield. Holden tells us that Allie died of leukemia, about four years ago, and that he was a great kid. Holden obviously misses him. The night Allie died, Holden slept in the garage and punched out all the windows. Holden finishes up Stradlater's essay about the baseball mitt at 10:30 and stares out the window, looking at the snowy world and listening to Ackley snore from the next room over.
Chapter Six:When Stradlater finally returns to the dorm, Holden can hardly restrain his nervous anticipation about Stradlater's date with Jane. Holden narrates this section with a lot of subdued anger and says he can't remember a lot of the details. Stradlater doesn't offer any information about the date, and Holden tries to conceal his concern. When Stradlater sees the essay Holden has written, he complains about the subject (Allie's baseball mitt), so Holden rips up the essay. Both boys are upset and edgy and don't talk for a while after this. Holden smokes a cigarette to relax and annoy Stradlater, who can't stand it when Holden breaks the rules. Holden finally asks about the date, and isn't happy to hear that Stradlater and Jane "just sat in the goddam car" all night. Holden asks directly if he "gave her the time" and Stradlater dances around the question. This is more than Holden can take, and he tries to give Stradlater a good sock in the face. In the end, it's Holden who takes the harder punch. He calls Stradlater a moron so many times that Stradlater looses it. Stradlater is nervous after this - he didn't really want to hit Holden. Holden's nose is bleeding profusely, and he waits for Stradlater to go to the bathroom before getting up. He digs under his bed to find his hunting hat and puts it on. Holden then looks at himself in the mirror. Chapter Seven:After the fight, Holden tries to find some consolation with Ackley, who, after he gets over the shock of Holden's bloody face, is mainly just irritated that Holden woke him up. Holden asks if he can spend the night in Ackley's roommate's bed, but Ackley refuses. Holden lies in the bed and can't stop thinking about Stradlater and how he puts the moves on girls, snowing them in with false sincerity. He's still worried about what Stradlater did with Jane. Holden keeps saying that everything felt "lonesome and rotten," and out in the corridor, tying to decide whose room to go to next, Holden decides what he really wants to do is leave Pencey Prep immediately. Since he's going to go home Wednesday anyway, Holden decides he can leave now, go into New York City and take it easy in a cheap hotel for a few days. As he packs up his things, his deliberation is broken for a moment only by the sight of a pair of ice skates his mother sent him a few days ago. Holden thinks about his mother going into the store and asking the salesman a million questions (she ended up buying the wrong kind, anyway) but seeing the ice skates makes Holden feel sad about failing out of Pencey and letting his parents down again. Chapter Eight:Holden walks to the train station and boards a late train for New York. He takes off his red hunting hat and, still depressed, stares out the window until Trenton, when a woman boards the near-empty train and plops herself down in the seat next to his. The woman comments on the Pencey Prep sticker on one of Holden's suitcases, and it comes out that she's the mother of Ernest Morrow, a classmate of Holden's. Ernest is, according to Holden, "the biggest bastard that ever went to Pencey...." But Mrs. Morrow seems nice enough, not to mention she's a nice looking woman, and Holden can't resist talking to her. Holden tells Mrs. Morrow his name is Rudolf Schmidt, the name of the Pencey janitor. This is the first of a rather fantastic string of lies he tells Mrs. Morrow. Ernest is shy and extremely popular, Holden tells her. Holden offers Mrs. Morrow a cigarette and they both smoke, against train rules. Holden even asks her if she'd like to have a cocktail in the club car, which is going a little too far. He tells a few more lies along the lines of how he's going home early to have a brain tumor removed, and has to assert a pretty strong force of will to stop lying.
Chapter Nine:After Holden gets off the train, he catches a cab downtown instead. The cabbie is not one for conversation, and he's put-off by Holden's absentmindedness and his strange questions. His obsession with the ducks in Central Park, which he first mentioned when he was back at old Mr. Spencer's house, comes up again. The cabbie drops Holden off at the Edmont Hotel. All bound up now, Holden sits down, smokes a few cigarettes, and decides to call Faith Cavendish, a woman a guy from Princeton said "didn't mind doing it once in a while...." (pg. 63) She's angry to be bugged by a stranger in the middle of the night, but warms up after a bit. She won't, however, agree to have drinks with him that night and Holden, who needs some instant satisfaction more than anything else, turns down her offer to meet for drinks the next day. Holden instantly regrets turning her down.
Chapter Ten: Holden finds some girls in the hotel's Lavender Room. Bernice, Marty and Laverne are three pretty dull women, all about thirty years old. They're visiting from Seattle, hoping against the odds to see some famous New Yorker walk into the dumpy little hotel bar. Holden, in the mood to dance, finally gets Bernice, the blonde and the best looking of the three, out on the dance floor. Bernice does a good job cutting the rug, despite the terrible band. Eventually all three women dance with Holden, and he spends the rest of the evening at their table, sucking down cokes (because the waiter refuses to serve him a drink) and trying to get the women to talk. They know he's young, and make little show about even being civil to him. In the end, he buys them a bunch of drinks and gets left in the bar, without girls and without drinks, the two things anyone needs, Holden says, to survive a night in a crappy hotel bar. Chapter Eleven:On his way back through the hotel lobby, Holden gets Jane Gallagher on his mind again. They met, Holden says, when they lived next door in Maine one summer, and the two of them used to play golf and checkers together. While he won't describe her as conventionally beautiful, Holden is obviously smitten. He seems particularly fixated on her mouth, and he seems to have a general fondness for Jane's mind and sensibilities. They haven't, Holden is quick to mention, even necked, though they did come close one time, when Jane broke down over her booze-hound step-father, Mr. Cudahy, and Holden was driven to console her with kisses, though none on those famous lips. Holden is nearly overwhelmed with depression. He decides to head out to a piano club his brother D.B. used to frequent, though even the possibly authentic pleasure of a piano bar leaves a bad taste in Holden's mouth. He says of Ernie, the player there. Chapter Twelve: When Holden arrives at Ernie's, he finds it full of "prep school jerks and college jerks" and Ernie's piano playing, flashy and melodramatic, leaves the jerks swooning with admiration and Holden choking with his usual contempt and despair. He gets stuck at the worst table in the joint, a situation somewhat eased by the fact that he can at least get served a stiff drink here. Holden gives his running commentary on the boring, dreadful conversations happening all around him, and is smoking and drinking up a rather lonely storm until one of his brother D.B.'s old flings, Lillian Simmons, recognizes him and strikes up a conversation. The conversation isn't particularly satisfying, and Holden declines an invitation to join Lillian and her Navy guy date. He says he has to leave, and goes. Chapter Thirteen: It's quite late at this point, and Holden steers away from the bars and is almost safely back in his room when the elevator man asks him if he's interested "in a little tail t'night?" (pg. 91) It's been a bad and lonely night, so Holden says yes, an answer he soon regrets. It's at this point that he blurts out what's pretty clear from his behavior: "If you want to know the truth, I'm a virgin. I really am. I've had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I've never got around to it yet." Holden resorts to his favorite coping mechanism - lying - and tells Sunny he's just had a major operation on his clavichord. Sunny puts on her best sell, climbing on Holden's lap and whispering in his ear, but this only makes him more nervous. In the end, he pays her for services-not-rendered. Chapter Fourteen: Holden tries to find a little consolation by talking to Allie, his dead brother. This turns into an attempt at prayer, though Holden is "sort of an atheist" (pg. 99), and can't really muster the proper enthusiasm. At any rate, all this comes to a sharp end with a knock at the door. Holden, who's nervous and in his pajamas, opens the door to find Sunny and Maurice, the elevator man/pimp. They've come for their five bucks, which Holden, on principle, really does not want to fork over. Old Maurice keeps calling Holden "chief," and finally gets up in Holden's face, first giving him a sharp flick of his finger on the vulnerable part of his pajama pants, and then a solid slug in the stomach. They take the five dollars from Holden's wallet and leave him writhing on the floor. It feels rotten, but Holden can't resist the opportunity to pretend he's a wounded character in the movies, struggling to cover his gaping bullet wound and avenge this own wound with the help of an automatic weapon. Chapter Fifteen:Holden wakes up hungry and lonely, and decides to give Sally Hayes a call. Sally's no Jane, and he's immediately annoyed when she uses the phony word "grand," and begins telling him about all the boys who are desperately hoping to take her on a date. But Sally's a girl and she's good-looking, so Holden sets up a date. They'll meet downtown that afternoon and catch a show.Holden's got some time to kill, so he stows his bags in a locker at the train station and heads off for some breakfast. Holden says he's skinny because he's not fond of eating much besides an occasional Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. Today, however, he orders a big greasy breakfast at a sandwich bar. While he's eating, two nuns come in and approach the counter. When they set down their cheap suitcases, Holden is off into a new fit of worries. He says even something as minor as the sight of cheap suitcases can make him dislike a person, and he tells the story of one of his old roommates who fell into this category. Despite their suitcases, Holden likes these nuns. They're schoolteachers, and Holden spends some time talking with one who teaches English about literature, especially Romeo and Juliet. Holden's analysis of the play is consistent with his habit of siding with the little guy and despising the expected reaction. His favorite character, he says, is Mercutio, and he pretty much hates Romeo.Before the nuns leave, Holden gives them ten dollars in the name of charity. He's glad to have escaped without being hit with a bunch of preaching and sermonizing. Chapter sixteen:With two hours to kill until his date with Sally, Holden takes off in search of a record he wants to buy for his little sister Phoebe. It's not a great day for walking - it's still pretty cold - though Holden sees one thing he thinks is worth relating. It's a mother and father and a little kid, walking down the street. They look a little poor, though happy, and the boy is walking a little to the side of them, out on the edge of the street, and he's singing. The song is simple, just the same phrase repeated: "'If a body catch a body coming through the rye.'" Chapter 16, pg. 115 This is the first direct mention of the catcher in the rye. Something about the scene and the song lift Holden's spirits for a bit.Holden gets tickets for a play, though he can't resist a little rail on actors, who are among the biggest phonies around. He also finds a copy of the record he wants for Phoebe, called "Little Shirley Beans". With the record in hand, he heads to Central Park, hoping to find Phoebe roller skating so he can give her the present. In the park, Phoebe's nowhere to be found, although Holden does strike up a conversation with another little girl, who suggests he look at the museum with the Indians in it. Holden sets off in the direction of the Museum of Natural History, thinking the whole time about the field trips he took there as a kid, times when everything was sweet and innocent, and the museum never seemed to change. Holden is really moved thinking about all this, and says,"Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway." Chapter 16, pg. 122
By the time he gets to the museum, he's gone from fond nostalgia to despair over change that's so strong he can't even make himself go inside.
Chapter Seventeen:Holden's still a little early for his date, so he heads into their meeting spot and girl-watches until his date arrives. Sally looks good, and Holden, spontaneous as ever, feels like marrying her right then and there. The two take a cab to the theater, making out a bit on the way, and Holden even tells Sally he loves her. She says the same, though also advises him, in the same breath, to get a more stylish haircut.The play more or less gets on Holden's nerves, though he seems interested in articulating why the actors don't please him. They're like Ernie, the piano player in the Village, he says--so good that they've started showing off instead of doing their job in a genuine and heartfelt way. What makes the whole experience worse is the appearance of some phony friend of Sally's who captures her attention during both intermissions. The two of them name-drop and ignore Holden's presence. By the time they get in the cab after the show, Holden has grown to "sort of hate old Sally...." (pg. 128)
There seems to be a chance that the evening will be salvaged, for Sally asks Holden if he wants to continue the date with a little ice skating at Rockefeller Center. Sally's up for this mainly so that she can wear her short little ice-skating skirt. She looks stylish at least while she's falling down all over the place. She and Holden spend most of the time on their rear ends, and they finally cut the torture and go inside for a drink.
Their conversation is in the typical superficial rut at first, though Holden, presumably exasperated with all this phoniness, finally bursts out and asks Sally if she ever gets fed up, whether she hates school. Sally is a clear fence-rider, a complainer but one who's not up for breaking any rules. As Holden, excited to finally vent some of his exasperation, gets crazier, louder and more critical, she gets more and more uncomfortable. Holden gives his clearest condemnation of boys' school.
''It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques.'" Chapter 17, pg. 131 Holden goes on, to Sally's horror, and gets so worked up that he invites her to flee with him to Massachusetts or Vermont. This is the last thing in the world that the budding socialite Sally is interested in, though she tries to let Holden, who seems to be acting a bit the madman, down softly. Holden is confrontational enough, however, that she loses her manners, too. Finally, they're about to leave and Holden tells Sally that she's a royal pain in the ass. This seals his fate, and he's soon out on the street, having left his date to find her own way home. Chapter Eighteen:As he walks, he thinks about war, as he's just seen a war movie. Holden says his brother D.B. fought in the war, and that D.B. didn't think much of it at all. Holden shares D.B.'s opinion, he's got what he'd call "yellowness" in this respect, too. If there's ever another war, Holden says, "they better just take me out and stick me in front of a firing squad."
Chapter Nineteen:The Wicker Bar is a pompous place that normally features two French girls singing dirty songs, though the girls don't seem to be there when Holden arrives to meet Carl Luce. Carl, who is a bit older and certainly considers himself in another planet than Holden as far as wisdom goes, comes across as a pretty stiff and snobby guy. He drinks extra-dry martinis and dismisses most of Holden's attempts at conversation, which are admittedly a bit juvenile. Holden is particularly agitated about sex in this scene, and has his first bout of homophobia, calling gay men "flits." Carl Luce apparently knows some things about girls and sex. He says, for instance, he's currently dating a foreign sculptress in her late thirties. Holden keeps trying to get some details out of him. Carl Luce refuses to answer these "typical Caulfield questions...." (pg. 146) When Holden tries to be honest and explain how the problem with his sex life is that he can't get turned on by a girl unless he really likes her, Carl advises he go to a psychoanalyst. Luce's father is a psychoanalyst, and apparently Carl has made this suggestion before.Not surprisingly, Luce leaves when he feels he's stayed his obligatory time, even though Holden practically begs him to stay.
Chapter Twenty: With Luce gone, Holden turns to his drinks and before long is quite drunk. Valencia, the singer who's replaced the French girls, belts out a few tunes, and Holden first gets dramatic, doing his bullet-in-the-guts routine, then a little maudlin, wanting to get a girl on the phone. He staggers out of the bar and calls Sally, who is surprisingly nice and patient with Holden, who last left her to find her own way home from the ice skating rink. Holden is rambling and slurring, though, and Sally ultimately hangs up on him. Holden's next stop is the bathroom, where he tries to get his wits back by dunking his head in a sinkful of ice cold water. The piano player from the bar comes in, combs his hair and shakes off Holden's kiss-up compliments. The piano player advises Holden to go home, but Holden doesn't really have anywhere to go. He leaves the bar and heads in the direction of Central Park, to investigate the lagoon for traces of the ducks. The ice water obviously hasn't sobered Holden up fully. He has a terrifically hard time finding the lagoon, even though he's lived in New York all his life and knows the park like the back of his hand. He drops Phoebe's record on the way, breaking it into a bunch of tiny pieces. The pond is partly frozen, and although Holden does a thorough investigation, nearly falling into the water a few times, there are no ducks to be found.Sitting on a park bench, his wet hair frozen solid, Holden's thoughts turn to death. He hates the idea of his body spending eternity in a cemetery, and he's bothered to think that that's what's happened to his brother Allie. Ultimately, it's the thought of how sad Phoebe would be if he died that gets Holden up and off the park bench. He's decided that he'll go home, sneak in, and pay "old Phoebe" a visit.
Chapter Twenty-One: Holden's got the good luck to find a substitute elevator boy on duty, and he makes it up to his parents' apartment without attracting too much attention. Phoebe is asleep in D.B.'s room, where she likes to stay when he's away, and Holden sneaks quietly into the room, sitting down at a big desk and leafing through some of Phoebe's notebooks, which he gets a big kick out of. When Holden finally wakes Phoebe up, she's obviously thrilled to see him. She chatters about the Christmas play she's going to be in, about the movie she saw that afternoon, about a boy in school she's having a kid-drama with, and she reassures Holden by telling him that their parents are out a party and won't be back until very late. Phoebe's a smart one, though, and pretty soon she gets around to asking why Holden's home on Saturday when he's supposed to arrive on Wednesday. Despite Holden's rationalizations, Phoebe's onto him, and is soon moaning with a very parental-sounding despair that he's obviously gotten kicked out of school again, and that "'Daddy'll kill you.'" (pg. 165) Holden tries to reassure her, but Phoebe will have none of that--she pulls a pillow over her head and refuses to come out.
Chapter Twenty-Two:Holden returns from a quick trip to the living room, to steal some cigarettes, and finds that Phoebe still won't look at him. When Phoebe finally asks him why he got kicked out of Pencey, or more clearly, why he "did it," Holden spits out his problem with Pencey: that almost without exception, it's full of phonies and mean guys. Phoebe is not particularly sympathetic, and seems to think that Holden's problem is bigger than one of adjustment at Pencey Prep. She demands that he name one thing he likes, just one thing, then stares at him, waiting for an answer. While she waits, Holden can't keep his mind on the question at hand, and he starts thinking about James Castle, a boy who got bullied around at one of Holden's old schools and ultimately jumped out of a window to his death. Phoebe interrupts his thoughts, now telling Holden, "'You can't even think of one thing.'" (pg. 171) Holden finally answers that he likes Allie and that he likes what he's doing at the moment, sitting and chatting with Phoebe. Neither answer satisfies Holden's sister, and she demands next to know what Holden's going to do with his life. This question only leads Holden to another depressing rant about how most anything you do in the adult world ends up making a phony out of you.Finally, sitting on the bed, Holden comes up with one job he'd like to have. He tells Phoebe of a vision he's had. "'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.'" Chapter 22, pg. 173 Phoebe can only sit silent after this, until she finally asserts one last time, "'Daddy's going to kill you.'" (pg. 173)
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Holden makes a call to a favorite ex-teacher of his, Mr. Antolini, who, after hearing that Holden's been kicked out of Pencey, invites him over to his apartment. It's very late, and Holden's getting nervous again that his parents will come home.
When he returns to Phoebe, she's got the radio on and is in a better mood. She asks Holden to dance.
The two dance a few numbers, and Holden explains that Phoebe's an excellent dancer, especially for a kid. The two are sitting around, joking with each other, when Phoebe shoots to attention--she's heard the front door open. Holden hides in the closet and Phoebe flicks the light off, but their mother can tell she's been awake. Phoebe lies honorably on Holden's behalf, even going so far as to take the blame for Holden's cigarette smoke, saying she took a fugitive puff herself.
After their mother leaves, Holden is ready to make his own exit. Phoebe gives him all of her Christmas money, and all of the sudden, Holden is overwhelmed and starts to cry. He gets himself together, though, gives Phoebe a hug and his favorite red hunting hat, and heads out again into the cold night.
Chapter Twenty-Four:
Holden likes Mr. Antolini for his wit and his kindness. He was the only person, Holden says, who would go near James Castle's body after he jumped to his death. Mr. Antolini now lives in a swanky apartment with his wife, who's rich and a good bit older than he. The Antolini's threw a party earlier in the evening and Mr. Antolini has quite a few drinks in him. He's a little wired, though, and eager to talk with Holden. Holden is exhausted and hungover at this point, though he's grateful that Mr. Antolini's taken him in. Therefore, as with Mr. Spencer, Holden gives his best effort at listening to what amounts to a pretty scary lecture from his old teacher. Mr. Antolini is worried that Holden is headed for a fall, "'a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.'" (pg. 187) He fears that Holden is going to end up alienated and hating everyone by the time he's thirty. He gives Holden a bunch of advice, most of it to the effect that he needs to stick with school and come to realize that he's "'not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.'" (pg. 189) Holden listens, though when a yawn escapes him, Mr. Antolini laughs and helps him make up the couch. Holden seems like he might finally get the good bit of sleep he needs, but something happens, he says, that he almost doesn't even want to talk about. He wakes in the middle of the night to find Mr. Antolini sitting beside the bed, petting him on the head. Holden has a very fierce reaction to this; he jumps up, asks Mr. Antolini what the hell he's doing, then grabs his clothes to make his exit. He tries to be a bit civil about it, saying he's just going to get his suitcase from the station, but when he walks out the door it's obvious he's not coming back.
Chapter Twenty-Five:At this point, Holden's at rock bottom. He goes to Grand Central and sleeps on a bench, more depressed than he's ever been. When he wakes up, he thinks maybe he jumped to conclusions about Mr. Antolini's behavior, though he's suspicious because he always seems to be the recipient of "perverty behavior."It's only a few days before Christmas, and Holden walks through the city, filled with memories and sadness. He says,
"I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again." Chapter 25, pg. 197
This spooks Holden out, and he starts thinking about his dead brother Allie again, asking Allie not to let him disappear. It's now that Holden decides he's not going back home or back to any school, he'll go out West, get a job pumping gas, and live in a cabin. He also says, "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life." Chapter 25, pg. 198 Before he leaves, Holden wants to see Phoebe one last time, so he heads to her school with a note asking her to meet him at the art museum at lunchtime. While he's at the school, delivering the note, he sees 'Fuck you' written in two places, and this infuriates him. At the museum, where Holden leads a couple of little kids playing hooky in the direction of the mummy display, he sees the profanity written for the third time. This seems to say a lot about the world to Holden."That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose." Chapter 25, pg. 204 Phoebe shows at the appointed meeting place, dragging a big suitcase. She tells Holden she wants to come with him, news that makes Holden oddly furious. He tells Phoebe that she's supposed to be in the Christmas play, and that there's no way she's coming along. Phoebe gets mad and tosses Holden's red hunting hat at him. In what seems like an attempt to assuage her, Holden tells her that he's not going West, he's changed his mind and will go home if she goes back to school. Holden suggests she skip school that afternoon and hang out with him, though Phoebe's so mad that she won't walk on the same side of the street with her brother. At the zoo, in front of the carrousel, she finally softens up a bit. It's one of those carrousels with a gold ring that kids make a grab for, and Phoebe rides it while Holden sits watching, even after it starts pouring rain. He finally feels better. In fact, watching Phoebe, he's "damn happy" (pg. 213) and he seems to have come to a new conclusion about innocence and childhood. "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them."
Chapter Twenty-Six:At this point, Holden's at rock bottom. He goes to Grand Central and sleeps on a bench, more depressed than he's ever been. When he wakes up, he thinks maybe he jumped to conclusions about Mr. Antolini's behavior, though he's suspicious because he always seems to be the recipient of "perverty behavior."It's only a few days before Christmas, and Holden walks through the city, filled with memories and sadness. He says, "I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything. Then all of a sudden, something very spooky started happening. Every time I came to the end of a block and stepped off the goddam curb, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just go down, down, down, and nobody'd ever see me again." Chapter 25, pg. 197This spooks Holden out, and he starts thinking about his dead brother Allie again, asking Allie not to let him disappear. It's now that Holden decides he's not going back home or back to any school, he'll go out West, get a job pumping gas, and live in a cabin. He also says,
"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life." Chapter 25, pg. 198
Before he leaves, Holden wants to see Phoebe one last time, so he heads to her school with a note asking her to meet him at the art museum at lunchtime. While he's at the school, delivering the note, he sees 'Fuck you' written in two places, and this infuriates him. At the museum, where Holden leads a couple of little kids playing hooky in the direction of the mummy display, he sees the profanity written for the third time. This seems to say a lot about the world to Holden.
"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose." Chapter 25, pg. 204
Phoebe shows at the appointed meeting place, dragging a big suitcase. She tells Holden she wants to come with him, news that makes Holden oddly furious. He tells Phoebe that she's supposed to be in the Christmas play, and that there's no way she's coming along. Phoebe gets mad and tosses Holden's red hunting hat at him. In what seems like an attempt to assuage her, Holden tells her that he's not going West, he's changed his mind and will go home if she goes back to school. Holden suggests she skip school that afternoon and hang out with him, though Phoebe's so mad that she won't walk on the same side of the street with her brother. At the zoo, in front of the carrousel, she finally softens up a bit. It's one of those carrousels with a gold ring that kids make a grab for, and Phoebe rides it while Holden sits watching, even after it starts pouring rain. He finally feels better. In fact, watching Phoebe, he's "damn happy" (pg. 213) and he seems to have come to a new conclusion about innocence and childhood. "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them."